Taking Baers to the ZOO

October 29, 2011 ~ JodiLea ~ 1 Comment

No, my spell-check is not broken. I’m talking about the 4 Baer’s; my daughter, her hubby, and my 2 granddaughters. Last weekend they talked me and hubby into going to take them to the San Francisco Zoo.

Neither me or hubby wanted to spend an entire day walking around looking at smelly animals, but alas, we were out voted.

It has been many, many years since I went to the zoo ( my 30-year old daughter was 6 the last time), and we went to the zoo closest to us. I thought it was a very fine zoo. People tell me “Oh, the one in San Francisco is so much better!” Maybe 24 years ago it was the best zoo in California, but I don’t think it is now.

My foot Don’t get me wrong – we had fun. The granddaughters loved it and I took a ton of pictures. Some of them were blurry (animals move you know). Most were good photos, even the ones of the ground.

One of my issues with the SF Zoo: Where are the Elephants?

Not even one elephant. Lots of farm animals. Goats, pigs, sheep, and a donkey. But no elephant. I had a lot of trouble getting over that. One week later and I’m still puzzling about it. But let’s move on…

Our first surprise was at the ticket booth. Tickets and parking added up to $77. This is not Disneyland, people. It’s the ZOO!.

Shy Giraffe The first animal we saw was a giraffe. Well, we saw a spotted neck with a clump of leaves instead of a head, but we figured this to be a giraffe.

We were right. Can’t fool me even after 24 years 😉

I can’t tell a male giraffe from a female one, but I would bet it was female because she was snooty and turned her back on us. Giraffe Leaving

She went over to visit a smaller giraffe that was in a cage. As she lumbered along, it reminded me of the Brontosaurus (or Veggiesaurus if you prefer) from Jurassic Park.

Momma Visiting Baby . Could this be Brandon the baby giraffe and his mommy? Probably.

In the background? A goat of course. They were hanging out with the giraffes. I noticed other species with odd roommates.

Peacocks hung out with practically everybody. We must have seen a dozen of them, and not one of them would show off his plumage. I guess they don’t show off unless peahens are around, and they were off sitting on eggs or something.

We spent a lot of time with the prairie dogs. Not really exotic zoo animals, but helluva lot of fun to watch. My 18 month-old granddaughter fell in love with them and did not want to move along. .

Even these little guys have little cell phones..

Most of the animals in the zoo seemed sad to me, so I really enjoyed watching the prairie dogs and the meerkats. You couldn’t help but laugh out loud at their antics.

Mercats Lazing About Not sure if we saw the family of meerkats playing possum, or taking a snooze in the sun.

Mercat King This guy must be King of the Meerkats. Or thinks he is.

Well, I could go on (and on, and on…) and give you the blow-by-blow account of our day at the zoo. But I won’t. I have more cool pictures, but they can wait until another post.

I have not posted anything in a few days because I have not been inspired by anything except my grandkids and who wants to read that? Also, I have caught up on all the blogs I follow and I spend all my writing time reading, then I don’t have the time to write.

Sometimes I just need to step back and see my life and the world around me. Take a deep breath. Stop pushing myself to do, do, do every minute of the day. Take a trip to the zoo.

Even if there are no elephants.

The Journey To The Other Side

September 30, 2011 ~ JodiLea ~ 2 Comments

September is National Menopause Awareness Month…

That goodness it’s nearly over. I feel overly aware myself. I passed along this awareness to co-workers, Crazy Chicks and my dear readers, so I feel like I did my part. Now I can begin research on October’s subjects of awareness. There’s got to be one more fun…

(If you haven’t had enough – More about menopause at Lifescript.com.)

As I journey to the other side (of youth and womanhood), I keep fighting what is happening to my body and my mind. The more I fight, the unhappier I become. Inside I feel 30-years old, but now my body is telling me it’s a lot older than that. Not subtlety either.

For example, this week my bad (“bulging” is the term the spine doctor uses) disc screams at me when I chose to change my position slightly. I say “Oh!”, “Yikes!”, “Eek!” very often. Occasionally, a sharp and sudden pain warrants a good old-fashioned “#&*%@!!” or even a “*&^#$$@@!” – yelled out loud at great volume. The sharp pain I expect (because I attempt to move), warrants those words, but mostly they stay in my brain and don’t exit my mouth.

The only thing I want hubby to do to me is massage my neck (it tenses when disc acts up). That and fetch my ice-pack and 800 mg of Ibuprofen when it’s time for them. It’s probably time for a spinal steroid injection again. That is a whole different blog post in itself.

This is not the romantic week-end hubby and I looked forward to all week. Sigh. Contrary to what young people think, it isn’t being married a long time that dulls the desire to have sex.

It’s the pain.

My Big Fat Hairy Decision

September 24, 2011 ~ JodiLea ~ 4 Comments

I am ashamed to admit this, but I have allowed my hair to look horrid all summer. Camouflaging it with pony-tails, clips, and head-bands. “Why?” Because I could not decide what I was going to do about it, that’s why.

My bleached highlights are way past my scalp, so I can’t say my roots are showing anymore. I could say, “OMG, my gray is showing!” and that would be correct. It would be so cool if gray were the new blonde. But no, and here I have baby fine brown hair, highlighted with gray. You won’t see me in any Vidal Sassoon commercials.

It’s possible you could see me in wig commercials soon, the rate I am losing my hair. It’s totally freaking me out! Why is this happening to me?? I’m not on chemo.. It’s not a symptom of menopause, or diabetes either. My doctor(s) think it’s stress related, so what else is new?. The only thing I am stressing out about is changing my hair-style to minimize the gray and the bald spots. I’m married to a very handsome man (with a great head of hair) that women (with sexy long hair) flirt with. And here I am contemplating chopping mine short, so the weight does not pull it out. Hubby dislikes short hair (Duh, all men do). I wonder how he feels about bald ones?

Well, today is the big day. This afternoon I have an appointment with my hairdresser, Tina, and we are going to figure out the best thing to do. Tina has cut, colored, and highlighted my hair since the 80’s. She makes highlights look as if you were born with that hair color. I trust her judgement better than my own. My natural hair color is a dull shade of Dog Poop Brown. Seriously. Crayola calls it something else, but it’s in that big box of 64 crayons with the crayon ~~sharpener~~ breaker on the back. Time to get some chores done and stop thinking about it.

Even more hair is falling out as you read this…